Tag Archive | "laptop"

Posted on 01 June 2011

S.E.C. Case Stands Out Because It Stands Alone (NYT)
But [Fabrice] Tourre’s world would soon be turned upside down. In fall 2009, the S.E.C. issued him a Wells notice, a formal warning that he was likely to be named in a civil fraud suit for his role in the mortgage deals. Mr. Egol also received such a notice in 2010. In their Oct. 10 response to the S.E.C., Mr. Tourre’s lawyers, including Pamela Chepiga of Allen & Overy, made an argument that they have not emphasized publicly. They contended that “singling Mr. Tourre out for criticism regarding the content of this clearly collaborative effort is unreasonable.” These legal replies, which are not public, were provided to The New York Times by Nancy Cohen, an artist and filmmaker in New York also known as Nancy Koan, who says she found the materials in a laptop she had been given by a friend in 2006. The friend told her he had happened upon the laptop discarded in a garbage area in a downtown apartment building. E-mail messages for Mr. Tourre continued streaming into the device, but Ms. Cohen said she had ignored them until she heard Mr. Tourre’s name in news reports about the S.E.C. case. She then provided the material to The Times. Mr. Tourre’s lawyer did not respond to an inquiry for comment.

Did the NYT hack Fabrice Tourre’s email? (Reuters)
Felix Salmon: “Louise Story and Gretchen Morgenson have a long and rambling story about the court case against Goldman’s Fabrice Tourre, which is mainly interesting for how it was sourced…I’m sure this was extremely carefully formulated, but it does raise a lot of questions without answering them. Tourre’s name was splashed over the newspapers in April 2010, so it stands to reason that the NYT has had some kind of access to Tourre’s private, password-protected email account — not to mention archives going back at least to 2006 — for a good year at this point. I’d also guess that the NYT is going public with its source now because Tourre finally got around to changing his password, and the stream of emails then dried up.”

SAC Faces Probe of Biotech Trading (WSJ)
MedImmune shares jumped 18% on April 23, 2007, the day its takeover was announced. Trading was heavy before the announcement, driving shares up more than 50% over six weeks, suggesting that rumors of a deal may have reached traders ahead of the announcement. SAC significantly increased its holdings of MedImmune during the quarter prior to the one in which the deal was announced, according to public filings. SAC increased its holdings from 151,000 shares in the fourth quarter of 2006 to 796,000 shares in first quarter of 2007. It cut its holdings to 30,000 shares at the end of 2007′s second quarter, then reported that it sold the position completely, according to filings.

Greece nears IMF/EU deal, dismisses drachma talk (Reuters)
Greece should complete talks by the end of the week with inspectors from the EU and IMF on a medium-term budget plan plus a vital next slice of international aid, sources close to the negotiations said on Wednesday.

EU warns US to speed up bank reform (FT)
In a letter sent last week to US Treasury secretary Tim Geithner, Michel Barnier, the European commissioner in charge of financial markets, argued that Brussels was ahead of the US in several areas – including capital requirements for banks and limits on bonuses for financial executives. Mr Barnier urged the US to match European efforts. “The level playing field must be a reality, not an empty slogan,” he wrote in the May 27 letter, which was obtained by the Financial Times.

Irish lenders outline loss plans for bondholders (FT)
Three of Ireland’s lenders revealed plans to impose losses of up to 90 per cent on bondholders in attempts to make them shoulder some of the cost of recapitalising the country’s banks. Bank of Ireland said it would shortly announce a cash offer for €2.6bn ($3.7bn) of its subordinated debt, with discounts of either 80 per cent or 90 per cent depending on the type of bond. Two smaller lenders, Irish Life & Permanent and EBS, planned to impose similar losses on holders of about €1bn of debt.

Attorney General orders more episodes of the “The Wire”, or a movie (Reuters)
“I want to speak directly to Mr. Burns and Mr. Simon: Do another season of ‘The Wire’,” Holder said, drawing laughter and applause from the audience. “That’s actually at a minimum. … If you don’t do a season, do a movie. We’ve done HBO movies, this is a series that deserves a movie. I want another season or I want a movie. I have a lot of power Mr. Burns and Mr. Simon.”

Citigroup Close to China Securities Partnership Deal (WSJ)
Citigroup Inc. is close to an agreement with a partner in China to set up a joint-venture securities business that would give the New York bank a long-sought foothold in China’s domestic capital markets, according to people familiar with the situation. Citigroup is expected to sign a memorandum of understanding with Shanghai-based Orient Securities Company Ltd. as soon as Thursday morning China time.

EIB halts Glencore lending on governance concerns (Reuters)
The EIB, the European Union’s lending institution, provided in 2005 a $50 million loan to Mopani Copper Mines, a Zambian subsidiary of Swiss-based Glencore, to help pay for the modernisation of a copper smelter. But Mopani has since been accused by some non-governmental organisations — most recently by campaign groups in an open letter signed by a group of European parliamentarians — of tax evasion and of causing widespread pollution.

South Korea Probes Foreign Banks (WSJ)
Financial Supervisory Service Deputy Gov. Kim Yung-dae said at a briefing Tuesday that some foreign-bank branches in South Korea were handing over day-to-day trading operations involving money held in local accounts to a larger foreign branch or regional headquarters in places like Hong Kong and Singapore. Such outsourcing is illegal in South Korea…Mr. Kim said HSBC Holdings PLC and Crédit Agricole SA have already been sanctioned for improper outsourcing of operations involving derivatives…A person familiar with the situation said Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC may also be sanctioned for engaging in similar activity, with the FSS likely to decide on the matter in June or July.

Sovereign ratings still relevant – but mostly when they go negative (FT Alphaville)
Bond markets still react to sovereign ratings announcements, though they tend to react more when the rating agencies say something negative. That’s the conclusion of a new working paper from the European Central Bank, which looked at changes in yields and CDS spreads after rating actions from Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch on two dozen European Union countries from 1995 on.

Lehman Veteran Is Back in Game (WSJ)
Mark Walsh is best known for the gigantic real-estate deals that backfired on Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. before it collapsed in 2008. As the financial crisis recedes, the 52-year-old Mr. Walsh is mounting a low-key comeback at a new real-estate firm by leaning on connections made before the real-estate bubble burst. “Unfortunately, Mark has to live with the talk of having done a couple of bad deals, rather than people focusing on the overwhelming amount of good ones,” says New York real-estate developer Steven Witkoff.

Accuser was maid to wait (NYP)
A female manager at the ritzy Pierre hotel was suspended yesterday for shrugging off a room attendant who reported that an Egyptian business big shot had just sexually assaulted her in his room, the hotel revealed yesterday. The manager, whose name was not released, merely noted the maid’s shocking claims in a logbook — and never reported them to Pierre security, her own bosses or police, officials said.

ACLU wants porn to be allowed for South Carolina inmates (ABC)
The American Civil Liberties Union is pushing for porn at a detention center in Moncks Corner, South Carolina. The move came after reports surfaced that the facility only allowed inmates to read the Bible. But prison officials said that isn’t true and inmates have a wide variety of reading material at their disposal.

Posted on 06 May 2011

Joanne Feeney with Longbow Research, who follows Intel (INTC), today reflects on a story posted on SemiAccurate by Charlie Demerjian yesterday suggesting Apple (AAPL) may switch its laptop computers from Intel’s processors to its own chips based on designs of ARM Holdings (ARMH).

The story, “Apple Dumps Intel From Laptop Line,” is anything but tentative. Demerjian opines that Apple is waiting till the next version of ARM’s chips have full 64-bit memory addressing before making a switch. He points to remarks by another AMR licensee, Nvidia (NVDA), suggesting that that milestone will be in Q4 of next year or maybe Q1 of 2013. “It won’t be really soon, but we are told it is a done deal,” writes Demerjian.

Feeney observes that Demerjian is well-respected in tech circles and has been right in past observations, and so, “We view this as a reasonable possibility for Apple, but do not expect the Windows-based PC makers to follow suit.”

Apple, of course, has used its home-brewed A4 and A5 chips based on ARM modified CPU architecture to power its iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. The next version of Apple’s computer operating system, “Lion,” has some features that bring it closer to the look and feel of the iOS operating system on the iPhone, so it’s clear that Apple is trying to meld some aspects of its computers with its non-laptop, non-desktop machines.

But there’s enough uncertainty, in Feeney’s view, about a possible switch that it’s “not to be an immediate concern” for Intel’s stock.

Intel shares today are down 26 cents, or 1%, at $23.35. Apple shares are up $2.24, or 0.7%, at $348.99. And ARM shares are up $1.70, or 6%, at $29.21.

Posted on 03 January 2011

Intel is formally introducing one of its most important chips in a long time today. The code-named Sandy Bridge chip combines graphics and a microprocessor on the same silicon chip.

The company is making the announcement in advance of the Consumer Electronics Show, the biggest tech event of the year which starts on Tuesday in Las Vegas. At CES, dozens of computer makers will introduce 500 new computers based on what Intel calls its second-generation Intel Core processor family.

With the Sandy Bridge design, computer makers don’t have to add separate graphics chips from Advanced Micro Devices or Nvidia — at least for laptops that don’t need stellar performance. AMD is also debuting its Fusion combo chip this week, making CES 2011 one of the most competitive computer events in a long time. Altogether, Intel has 29 new Core i3, i5 and i7 processors.

The new graphics-heavy approach for Sandy Bridge is a recognitio of how much users need 3D graphics and fast video performance in this day and age. Intel is calling this emphasis on graphics the User Visual Experience. Sandy Bridge can quickly convert video from one format to another, though not as fast as stand-alone graphics chips can.

The first chips available from Intel will be quad-core Sandy Bridge models, which have four microprocessor cores, or brains, on one chip. The chips also feature version 2.0 of Intel Wireless Display, which can wirelessly show your laptop’s screen on a TV in high-definition 1080p resolution.

With a feature called Intel Insider, the chip can unlock premium high-definition content such as movies on a computer. The platform will help studios distribute their content without a risk of piracy. Systems using the first Sandy Bridge chips will be available on Jan. 9 and more dual-core models will be available in February. Intel is building the chips with its 32-nanometer manufacturing technology.

Posted on 13 December 2010

Gleacher & Co. analyst Mark McKechnie writes today that he upgraded his laptop data card last week to the “4G” wireless service provided by Verizon Communications’s (VZ) Verizon Wireless unit and found it to be very fast.
McKechnie said he was getting download speeds of 11 megabits per second to 22 [...]

Posted on 12 October 2010

Veebeam, the DEMOgod winning startup that has developed a way to easily stream content from your computer to your HDTV wirelessly, has snagged another $6 million in the first part of a two-part second funding round.

As I’ve written previously, Veebeam’s product consists of two parts: A USB antenna inserted into your PC, and a wireless receiver that plugs into an HDMI port on your HDTV. The two units establish a secure wireless connection and are capable of streaming HD files up to 1080p resolution from 5 to 10 meters. The system relies on Wireless USB (WUSB) to make the connection — a short-range wireless standard that offers more bandwidth than Wi-Fi and also experiences less interference.

The Veebeam SD is available for $99, and the HD version is slightly more at $139. Both support PCs and Macs. The HD product is one of the only wireless streaming solutions that can push out 1080p high-definition video. Veebeam is competing directly with Netgear’s Push2TV technology (which only works with select PC laptops), and indirectly with streaming solutions like the Roku Box, Apple TV, and the upcoming Google TV.

The big benefit of Veebeam is that it lets you see on your TV exactly what you’re seeing on your computer. It won’t have issues streaming content from Hulu’s website, for example, which Google TV and Boxee are still having trouble with. While it’s seemingly no different from hooking up your computer directly to your TV with a video cable, Veebeam offers a wireless solution that should be less fuss than constantly rigging up your laptop to your HDTV.

The company has offices in San Diego, Calif., and Cambridge, UK. Thus far, it has raised $22 million in funding. This latest round was led by Amadeus Capital Partners, Intel Capital, and Oak Investment Partners, who were joined by Bay Partners, Formative Ventures, Khosla Ventures, and Vision Capital.

Posted on 11 September 2010

Intel hopes to shake up the computer chip market as it unveils details on Monday about how it is putting a microprocessor and graphics processor onto a single silicon chip.

Code-named Sandy Bridge, the chip will figure prominently in the keynote speech of Intel chief executive Paul Otellini, who kicks off the Intel Developer Forum event in San Francisco on Monday.

The processor-graphics combo chip is available in prototypes now and will ship to customers in early 2011. It will target low-end desktop computers and laptops, and it could cause a headache for Nvidia, the maker of stand-alone graphics chips. As such, the chip is the latest manifestation of the ongoing debate about whether graphics processing should be done with a much more powerful 3D graphics processing unit, or GPU, or if it can be handled better as part of a computer’s central processing unit, CPU, also known as the microprocessor.

Intel launched a combo chip last year that glued together two chips in a single package. But Nvidia laughed off that chip as brain-dead when it came to running the top 30 computer games. But the second-generation effort, Sandy Bridge, combines the two chips into one and poses a greater threat. Anand Lal Shimpi, a noted hardware reviewer at Anandtech, said that he thinks that entry-level GPUs will be unnecessary in the wake of Sandy Bridge’s introduction. (See Anandtech chart at right, which compares the performance of existing Intel-compatible integrated graphics chips, where a graphics chip is combined with a chip set).

One of the reasons Intel can do this is Moore’s Law, the notion formulated by former Intel chairman Gordon Moore that says chip performance doubles every couple of years. As it makes circuitry smaller, it can fit more electronics onto a chip, improving performance. By moving to a new generation of manufacturing technology, Intel can combine a capable microprocessor (with four cores, or processing brains) with a decent graphics component.

Otellini at Intel said during the company’s recent earnings call that Intel was accelerating its investment in new 32-nanometer manufacturing technology because of strong demand from PC makers. Meanwhile, Advanced Micro Devices is preparing to launch its own hybrid chips, under the Fusion brand name, early next year.

Nvidia, meanwhile, continues to be a naysayer on the capabilities of hybrid chips and is skeptical of Intel’s (as yet unreleased) performance claims.

“They are launching a faster turbo-prop in a world that has moved on to jets,” said Ken Brown, an Nvidia spokesman.

You would expect that, since Nvidia doesn’t have its own microprocessor. But the company points out that Intel’s Sandy Bridge won’t be able to run DirectX 11, which is the graphics standard from Microsoft that governs whether developers can take advantage of certain cool graphics features. Nick Knupffer, spokesman for Intel, says that Intel is working on boosting its investment in driver technologies so that it will be able to run more games with better graphics.

“Integrated graphics and standalone graphics each have their place in the market in terms of performance and power consumption,” said Dean McCarron, analyst at Mercury Research. “Both graphics segments have coexisted for more than a decade, during which the capabilities of both segments have improved tremendously. It is highly unlikely either segment with displace the other, and increasingly we have seen active coexistence, particularly in the mobile market where computer makers are configuring notebooks to make use of both types of GPUs in the same platform.”

Sandy Bridge does have some features that aficionados will appreciate, such as the ability to display stereoscopic 3D Blu-ray videos and high-definition TV. It can support the Intel Wireless Display, which can display the image on your laptop on the big screen TV in your home. And it will have high-performance transcoding, or the ability to translate video from one format to another so that it can run on just about any device.

Intel recognizes that it isn’t going to kill off the market for $600 graphics cards that hardcore games want. But the market trends favor its direction, Knupffer said. By 2014, about 80 percent of the PCs shipped are expected to have hybrid chips, which Intel calls Processor Graphics, according to market researcher iSuppli.

Posted on 30 June 2010

Sony (SNE) today said it is recalling 535,000 Vaio laptops due to a temperature control defect that can cause excessive heat – enough to distort the shape of the laptop and cause skin burns. The recall affects several models on sale since January 2010. The recall includes 259,000 laptops sold [...]

Posted on 02 June 2010

Bazaar Labs, the startup behind an iPhone application that lets users share what movies and TV they’re watching, just revealed the addition of one more investor in its seed round: Google Ventures.

The San Francisco company’s app is called Miso and applies location-based startup Foursquare’s model to movies and TV. So users “check in” by saying what they’re watching, then win badges based on their viewing activity. It just launched a Miso Web app for participating from your laptop or desktop computer. And an iPad version is supposed to be coming soon.

Bazaar Labs already announced its seed round a week ago. (Disclosure: One of the company’s backers is Georges Harik, who also invested in VentureBeat.) Joe Kraus, the Google Ventures partner who previously cofounded Excite.com and Jotspot, made the new investment.